Hello Rattman, I think you'll find most aged cheeses aren't worth a hoot before a minimum of 2 months. Lancashire is very good at 60 days. I bandaged and buttered mine, but I think it would have aged ok without. I'm not a fan of vac sealing for ageing, just preserving cut aged pieces, so I'm not the person to ask about wether to vac or not. Also, flavorwise, Lancashire can benefit from the addition of a bit of thermo culture.

I'm just figuring this stuff out, but here's my rough understanding. This glosses over a lot of nuances but here goes. The meso and the thermo cultures work at different temps initially, but also on different time scales. They both initially develop acidity in the milk, but act differently in the cheese during aging. So a cheddar with a bit of themo added will develop differently in its aging than a plain meso cheddar.

Hey, Rattman, I have found that Lancashire is best anywhere from 60-90 days. That said, I can't always eat it all in the 30 day time frame, so I have started vacuum sealing what I'm not going to eat right away and put it in my regular refrigerator to extend it's life. We just ate a hunk of it that was over 3 months old - very sharp and nicely creamy textured, it was very, very good.

No, I taste my cheese before vac sealing it. But I also make cheese in 5 gallon (roughly 5 lb) batches, so I want to break them down into what we can eat reasonably in a short period of time.

I don't have a hygrometer in my cave or the ripening box, so I'm not sure of what the RH is. However, the cave (mini fridge) gets some moisture buildup on the back wall where the refrigeran runs through, so I'm guessing it's pretty high. If I leave a cheese in the ripening container for more than a couple of weeks with the lid completely on, I do get mold issues.

then I have to take the cheese out, clean it up, clean up the container and put it back in the cave, but I leave the lid skewed so that it is only about 3/4 covered. That seems to slow down the mold so that I only have to clean it off about every two weeks.

Nowhere near IL - we live about an hour from Minneapolis/St Paul, MN in west-central Wisconsin.

We live just north of Menomonie, WI. Do you take Highway 25 when you travel to Hayward? Hayward is a couple of hours north of here, mostly on back roads. If you pass anywhere near Menomonie, you'll have to stop in on your way north. Just pm me!

Rattman, I've made Lancashire a few times. Apart from Caerphilly, this is also a house favorite. I've only had mine turn "crumbly" once. Really super dry, like when I cut it, I couldn't even get a decent-sized piece without it falling apart. Blah. It was still good, fortunately, just not the creaminess it's been of the other makes. That being said, my other Lancashires have been a little hard on the outer part, like about less than an 8th from the rind, but the insides themselves have been really nice & creamy.

I'm making another batch today, too. One cheese a day for the next 10 days. Making really good use of my off time!